Latest / Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers / #107 Who is Jesus? Part 2-Cosmic Jesus

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#107 Who is Jesus? Part 2-Cosmic Jesus · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Tim Wright here along with John Burgess.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Terry Summers is still in rehearsals and over
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: the last 2000 years Christians have made what many would consider to be
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: an absurd claim that a Jewish man who lived only 33 years in Israel
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: and was crucified on a cross is God come in the flesh.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: is not just a human being, but a cosmic being.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And today we're going to dive into that a little bit.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Last week we talked about Jesus and tried to strip away some of the stuff
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: that has grown around Jesus that isn't necessarily helpful over the last 2000 years
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: to really get down to the bottom line for Jesus, that Jesus came to
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: really turns things upside down to be an advocate for those who are oppressed stand
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: on the side or to fight for justice.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: That meant standing over and against powers like Rome or even religious authority.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what he was going to do.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it ultimately got him killed for it.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that oftentimes what happens in Christianity is we miss all of that stuff.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we focus on some of the bigger issues like salvation,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: not that they don't matter, heaven, hell,
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: where Jesus didn't talk a lot about that stuff.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus talked about caring for the poor.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus talked about eating with sinners and tax collectors.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus talked about forgiving sinners.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus talked about loving your enemies.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's the heart and soul of Jesus.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: But there is more to the story that we want to plumb today.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that has to do with these claims of Jesus being more than just a human being.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're going to try to bring these two themes,
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: so to speak,
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: around Jesus together and show how they can work together
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: and not cancel each other out.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: And John is with us today, as always.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: We mentioned Terry is in rehearsals.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: She's going to play Phoenix here in the next few months.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: So apparently her rehearsals go until about midnight.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So the 12 hour days that's that's a lot of work a lot of work and she's got
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: a big big role in the place so we're we're we miss her but we're glad to give her
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: the time off to rest up so john any any thing you wanted to touch on before we dive
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: into what we're gonna talk about this week anything from last week you can think
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: of any
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, I just want to say that this is a pretty exciting topic because
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: the very early church was wrestling with this for,
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: what Tim, like a couple hundred years trying to figure out what this meant.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's okay if even at this point where the church is very settled
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: on this topic,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: if I think it's very human thing to come back and be like,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't understand how this works.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how did he make the claim?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if he did, what does that mean to me?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And in some circles right now,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: the discussion is,
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: did Jesus call us to worship him, or did Jesus call us to follow him?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a good question to ask.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that those are mutually exclusive.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think maybe at the end what we're going to come up with is to worship Jesus is
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: to follow him, and to follow him is to worship him.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the way that we worship Him isn't just by singing worship choruses in church on Sunday.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: The way Jesus wants to be worshiped is by us going out and doing what Jesus does,
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: and that's loving the vulnerable,
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: the least of these, and offering grace to anyone and everyone.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that's not to say anything negative about going to church and singing hymns
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: and singing worship choruses.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: But that wasn't the heart and soul of what the mission in Jesus was about.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so how do we bring together these these two concepts around the human Jesus and
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: the cosmic Jesus so to get us started I want to we're gonna read some passages
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: of Scripture and I'm gonna have John start with a passage from Colossians this is
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote Paul was hell-bent on arresting Christians
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: oversaw the execution of one of them, Stephen, in the book of Acts.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then he had a conversion experience.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he became one of the great articulators of Christianity.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the big debates right now is,
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: which I think is an unfortunate one, do we follow Jesus or do we follow
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: the Jesus of Paul and I don't think that those are mutually exclusive
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: but Paul does talk about Jesus very differently than Jesus talked
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: about himself I don't think they're mutually exclusive but we do want
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: to do some work to try to pull those two things together so John read for us
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: the letter that Paul wrote to the church in Colossae
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: and this is Colossians chapter one and John tell us what verse you're starting
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: at we're starting in 15 we're going to go through about 20 okay
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible.
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  SPEAKER_00: Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers,
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  SPEAKER_00: all things have been created through him and for him.
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  SPEAKER_00: He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
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  SPEAKER_00: He is the head of the body, the church.
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  SPEAKER_00: He is the beginning,
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  SPEAKER_00: the firstborn from the dead,
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  SPEAKER_00: so that he might come to have first place in everything.
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  SPEAKER_00: For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And through him,
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things,
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  SPEAKER_00: whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: All right,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: so remember,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: we're talking about a Jewish man who lived for 33 years,
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: as far as we can tell, and was crucified by the Romans.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: And Paul,
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: writing,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: maybe 20,
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: 30 years after Jesus was crucified,
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: and he's a Jewish man,
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  SPEAKER_01: so remember to even suggest that God could become, say, an image of
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right what was it that the usual have no graven images no gods before me and when
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: the Israelites created that golden calf and how how horrifying it would be
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: for any Jew to suggest anything that is an image of God except
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: for course human beings being made in the image of God so different thing
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And yet he says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, if you want to know what God looks like, look at Jesus.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is God.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: God is Jesus.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just a wild, wild claim for a Jewish man to make about Jesus.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: He's telling us that Jesus was there from the very beginning,
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: that all of creation happened through Jesus.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: He's before all things.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: All things hold together in Him.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: All, not just some, all of the fullness of God is pleased to dwell in Jesus.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's through Jesus that God is going to reconcile all things,
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: not just some, not just a few, but all things to God's self.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And He does it through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: So here we have, we have moved significantly
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: from an itinerant rabbi preacher who travels throughout Israel telling stories
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: about God's grace and God's love,
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: challenging religious authority,
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: challenging political authority,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: upending all religious ideas by always standing on the side of the poor,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: the oppressed.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: And now we're talking about Jesus being God,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: the image of God, that Jesus was God walking around planet Earth.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's just an extraordinary claim.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: You would think that if this is true,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: then of course you would worship this person because God is worthy of worship.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Tim, in the last podcast, we talked about image of God as it refers to us.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right.
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  SPEAKER_00: We talked about that.
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  SPEAKER_00: There was a book.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you didn't make it too far in the book because there was a comparison about,
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: what God thinks of us and and I'm not going to give it away because if you want
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: to know what we said,
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: you should go back to the last podcast because it was really good.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: But so is this image of God different?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Is this does this language mean something different than what we have talked about
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: before being you and I being made in the image of God?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think it has a different sense about it, yes.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think where we are the image of God as in we represent God is partly what that word means.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: We are God's representatives.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think what Paul is saying here is that Jesus is the picture.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to take a picture, a snapshot of God, this is what God looks like.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it's different than just a representative of.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is, as we're going to read later, God come in the flesh.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so it is more than a representative of this is God.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: This is what God looks like.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And again,
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: we get that because of the all things created through him,
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: of course, and all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in him.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we have moved dramatically from an earthly human being speaking about God's love
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: to a cosmic being who is God's love come in the flesh.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Another passage that speaks similarly to that is from the letter to Hebrews.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know who wrote this letter.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it says, he,
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  SPEAKER_01: meaning Jesus,
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  SPEAKER_01: is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he sustains all things by his powerful word.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: He is the reflection of God's glory, the exact imprint of God's very being.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is really radical stuff.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Again,
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: when you consider that the Jewish people would have been horrified by any sort
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: of representation of God that made God tangible,
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: whether it's a calf, whether it's a picture of a man, whatever it might be.
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  SPEAKER_01: And they're saying Jesus is the imprint.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and that was so for correct me if I'm wrong or like let's tease that out
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: a little bit on you said horrified but I think what you're saying is
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: that there was there was a natural sort of separation between the Jewish people
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: and God that they put into place out of respect for God and the rules and laws
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  SPEAKER_00: that grew up around that were were pretty stringent around
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: using the word God, writing the word God, or even indicating that something was like God.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think they were just very careful about that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, I hope our Jewish listeners can tell me where I'm wrong,
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: but I think what you're saying is that would have been a really big deal
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: because they were very, very careful about that.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they never wanted to do anything that would in any way disrespect God.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of Jewish people,
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: even to this day,
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  SPEAKER_01: rather than writing out G-O-D,
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: will write G-D because they would not want to in any way misspell,
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: for example, God's Word, which would be taking God's name in vain, right?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very strict Jews.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: So just to remind people, this is from Exodus chapter 20, the giving of the Ten Commandments.
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  SPEAKER_01: I am the Lord your God.
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  SPEAKER_01: who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
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  SPEAKER_01: So first of all, it starts with God's grace.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: We always need to remember the Ten Commandments started with God's action.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's what I did for you.
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  SPEAKER_01: So you shall have no other gods before me.
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  SPEAKER_01: And why would he say that?
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  SPEAKER_01: Because they just came out of a land, Egypt, that had all kinds of gods.
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  SPEAKER_01: You shall not make for yourself an idol,
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  SPEAKER_01: whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on earth beneath,
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  SPEAKER_01: or that is in the water underneath.
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  SPEAKER_01: Of course,
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: the Egyptians had all kinds of paintings of their gods and images of their gods,
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: which could be animals, it could be birds, whatever it might be.
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  SPEAKER_01: You shall not bow down to them or worship them for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God.
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  SPEAKER_01: Now that doesn't mean he's an envious God.
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  SPEAKER_01: People often mistake the word jealous there.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: What does God have to be jealous about?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: To be jealous here means to be protective.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: I am jealous of my wife.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: I am protective of my wife.
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  SPEAKER_01: I don't want anything to hurt her.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: So again, you've got this.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: You shall not make for yourself an idol or you could also say you should not make
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: for yourself an image of God because God is spirit and is
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: beyond our human imagination.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: So these claims about Jesus are really radical.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: to call Jesus the image of God, the imprint of God.
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  SPEAKER_01: Now, so you have this sort of this cosmic view of Jesus.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: He's from the beginning.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: All things are made through him.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have some passages that do a little bit of both.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: They try to take this cosmic Jesus and root him in humanity.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: and then somewhere takes a cosmic Jesus,
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: they root him in humanity, and then they make him cosmic again.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll look at a couple more of those,
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: and then we'll try to tease this all out and see if we can make some sense
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: of this week and last week.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead, John.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: You got a question?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So what I want to do is,
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: before we read the next portion of text,
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to read just two sentences here from the message.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: on the same thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is Colossians.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is actually 15 through 18, but I'm not going to read it all.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I just think any time in Scripture,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: we're talking about all or everything, that always hits me a little bit hard.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So the message says,
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: for everything,
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: absolutely everything,
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: above and below,
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  SPEAKER_00: visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels, everything.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: got started in him and finds its purpose in him.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: to this moment.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I didn't hear anything about Jesus being the image of the invisible God.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Did you skip that part?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: So 15 is we look at this son and see the God who cannot be seen.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: We look at this son and see God's original purpose in everything created.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't I don't know if the message got that.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would say that I don't I think sometimes the easier the better.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got sort of this cosmic picture of Jesus.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then let's go.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Let me read John chapter one.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: John does some really interesting things.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Each of the Gospels, as we've talked about before, start a Jesus story in different ways.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew roots the Jesus story, first of all, in a genealogy, and then he has a birth story.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Luke roots his with some prophecies,
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: some angels appearing,
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: and then he has a birth story,
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: but his birth story is rooted more in Roman language,
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: comparing Jesus to the Roman Emperor.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Mark just gets right into it, doesn't have a birth story, starts with the mission of Jesus.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Then you got John,
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: who starts not with Jesus on earth,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: but he starts with Jesus at the very beginning,
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: and he uses language that is an echo of Genesis chapter 1.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: So Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: John says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: He was in the beginning with God.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: All things came into being through him.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: And without him, not one thing came into being.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: What has come into being in him was life.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the life was the light of all people.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: So John starts with Jesus as God.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: When he uses the word word in the beginning was
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: the word that's that's means Jesus metaphor for Jesus of course words important
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: in scripture the word of God God's word spoken the word does what it goes out to do
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: the communication of God so in the beginning was the word the word was with God and
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: the word was God yeah so you got this cosmic thing with Jesus but then he says
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: in verse 14
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the word became flesh and lived among us.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: The word means to be tabernacle next to us or moved in next door to us.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: The word became a human being.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: God became a human being.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: So now we've got a little bit of convergence of these two views of Jesus.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: You've got the earthly Jesus, you've got the cosmic Jesus, and John brings them together
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: by saying Jesus is cosmic and this cosmic being,
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: God, became a human being and did so in the person of Jesus.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And John is writing to,
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: oftentimes you remind us,
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: the audience here,
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: but John is writing to,
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: we think,
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: both Jewish and Gentile Christians,
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: but he's wanting to make the point that if there's confusion about who Jesus is
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: or Jesus' identity, he's trying to shape that right away.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And part of the heresy he is dealing with,
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: John is the last gospel written,
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: probably written 60, 70 years after Jesus has been gone in heaven.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a thing called Gnosticism.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that the Gnostics believed was that they believed that God,
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: however they define God, would want nothing to do with human flesh.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: human flesh is evil.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Which of course is the exact opposite of what the Hebrew scriptures teach us.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: The human beings are created in the image of God.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So what John wants to say is, yeah, so you've got God.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: The Word became God.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: In the beginning was the Word.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: The Word was with God.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: The Word was God.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And this Word became human flesh, became a human being.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it will be
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: John, I think, who,
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: if I remember correctly,
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: when Jesus is crucified,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: the sword is stuck up into Jesus' side and blood and water comes out
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: because he wants to keep saying over and over again,
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: this God became a real human being because Gnosticism believed that,
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: yes, Jesus existed.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if he was God, then he was just spirit.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: We could see him.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: So if he were to walk on the beach, he would leave footprints behind.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: So John really wants us to understand that this cosmic being that God became
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: a human being put on flesh.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's what his agenda is.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And he picks that up again in his letters that he writes later on in the New Testament.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: So this is sort of big picture stuff we're doing.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Last week we talked about Jesus, the person.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: the human being and his mission and he made his mission very clear he came
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: to preach good news to the poor set the captives free to feed the hungry to stand
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: with the oppressed to carry out justice and which is firmly rooted in
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: the Old Testament in the Hebrew Scriptures as the story of Jesus develops in light
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: of his resurrection and as they try
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: to get their brains around well okay there's something different
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: about he wasn't just a rabbi
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: If this guy rose from the dead, then what is it about him?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when we begin to see this cosmic understanding of who Jesus is.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so you've got Paul with these, which we've already read these big grand pictures.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: He's the image of God.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Hebrews is the imprint of God, everything created through him.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: John uses that same language, but now he brings the cosmic down to humanity.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then Paul, we're going to look at one more passage.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: John's going to read for us from Philippians.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: where Paul does both.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: He starts with the cosmic,
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: he brings Jesus down to humanity, and then he makes him the cosmic being again.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: So this is Philippians 4, starting with verse 5, going through 11.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, here it is.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Who, though he existed in the form of God,
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped,
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, assuming human likeness.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: And being found in appearance as a human,
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God exalted him even more highly.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: and gave him the name that is above every other name so that at the name given
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: to Jesus every knee should bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: the Father.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: So notice here he starts cosmically.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Even though he was in the form of God, even though he was God,
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: He did not regard that as something to be exploited or be used for gain.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so he wanted to use his power as God to become a human being,
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: being born in human likeness, being found in human form.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you notice how he sort of says three times,
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: took on the form of a slave,
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: took on the form of human likeness,
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: found in human form, and then it became obedient to death.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Cosmic down to the human and then you've got
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: the cosmic again God exalted him he is now his name is above every name and at
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: the name of Jesus every knee is going to bend as in every knee every tongue is going
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: to confess as in every tongue that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: the Father so in you know a 30-minute podcast for us to try to
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Really get the sense of this major, major shift about Jesus and the claims about Jesus.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: What we kind of want to do is to say that there are these two stories about Jesus.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: They're not conflicting stories.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: They're not separate stories.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: They're the story.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: But we need to bring them together in a way that helps us make sense of
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: the whole Jesus story and what his mission is on earth.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think part of what we were trying to say last week and what we want
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: to say again this week is that the cosmic story of Jesus,
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: that he's God,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: the creator of the universe,
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: all things created through him,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: that one day every knee will bow or bend and will declare him Lord of all.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: That has sort of become the prominent storyline of the life of Jesus.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: And when that's the prominent storyline of Jesus, you quickly fall into power problems.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is a God of power.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is a God who created everything.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is who Jesus is.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: He sits in authority.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: And when when that becomes your go to, then suddenly Christianity is about power.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's about authority.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's about sin and forgiveness, which that's the Jesus story.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: But then it becomes about using your power to frighten people into heaven,
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: setting up systems like purgatory or penance,
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: things that you have to do to save yourself.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: It starts blending over into political power because
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: if this cosmic God really does want to rule over the world,
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: well, the way that you do that
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: in 2026 is through political power and might.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so you start identifying with political powers, you get yourself into trouble.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we when we look at this cosmic Jesus,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: we always need to remember what was it that this cosmic Jesus did when he was
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: on Earth?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: If he is indeed the
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: The image of the invisible God.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: If indeed when we look at Jesus and we see who God is,
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: then what does Jesus tell us that God is like?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: He is a God who comes to serve.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: He gave up his equality with God.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: He gave up his divine privilege,
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: took on the humble position of a slave,
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: was born as a human being,
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: humbled himself in obedience to God, and died a criminal's death on a cross.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: He uses power to serve.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: He uses his power to heal.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: He uses his power to put broken things back together.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: He uses his power to advocate for those who are on the wrong end of power,
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: those who are oppressed by power,
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: those who are abused by power, those who are left out by power.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's always where Jesus stands.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: The cosmic God who created everything came to earth to say,
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: it's not about power and ruling over people.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's about love and grace and compassion.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that extends even to your enemies.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And far too many Christians in the United States of America have gotten that wrong.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we are fighting for political power.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: We are making enemies of people.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: We are demonizing people.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: We are saying who's in and who's out,
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: and we are trying to grasp at political power to impose on the United States
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: of America a theology of Jesus that has nothing to do with Jesus or Scripture.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if the main message of Christianity is not about feeding the poor
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: and standing up for the oppressed and standing against abusive power,
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: then we have missed who this cosmic Jesus is.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we are no longer worshiping Jesus, we are worshiping power.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we can hold these two stories together.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: And what holds them together is the mission of Jesus.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that, ultimately, this mission was so anti-power that power crucified him.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that it was the grace and love that cannot be defeated.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: The power.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: God is love.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the Bible says.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: God is love and Jesus shows us in human form what that love looks like.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: So as we try to describe this human who was also God and this God who was also human
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: and understand that, I'm trying to think of an easy way forward.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if there is one, but it occurs to me that what
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: what you are reminding us of and for good reason is this extreme moving towards sort
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: of only understanding the God like the infinite God like power that's represented
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: in Jesus.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, part of him.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: But what is there also another extreme, Tim,
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: where we've,
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: have we not been and I say we,
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: you know, Christians in general sort of criticized for, you know,
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: What is the language like?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is my buddy.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you sort of lose the you get too far into the humanity.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is that it?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's a thing, right?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I you know what?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think it can be a thing.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: I that's a really interesting question.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think it becomes a problem when it it's just me and Jesus.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And there's no concern for anybody else.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: Or when we start to say things like, well, my Jesus would never say anything like that.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: My Jesus would never.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he's not your Jesus.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're his child.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very significant difference.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's not my Jesus in that sense.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm his son.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm his daughter.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: and so as a child of Jesus I want to represent and reflect who Jesus really is and
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: and he is the creator of the universe who loves humanity so much and acts always
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: and only out of love not out of power the power of Jesus is the power of love
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: and grace and reconciliation and that's extends to forgiving sins
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: It extends to reconciliation when the world comes to the end,
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: whatever that means, because all things will be reconciled by love.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: If love is not the primary driving force of Christianity, we've really missed it.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, I get your point.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be careful of it because,
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: especially for me right now,
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: going through the grief of losing Jan,
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: there have been some really,
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: not a lot,
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: but some refreshingly personal moments with Jesus where for a moment or two I sense
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: the presence as friend
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Tim Wright as Comforter Tim Wright I think that's true to the that it's all of
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: that Tim Wright that this God who really cares about the universe also really cares
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: about me it's all of that Tim Wright but this God who cares about the universe
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: and cares about me as a God who is a God who loves not a God who condemns not a God
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: who judges not a God who isolates not a God who creates enemies and
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: So if we want to understand who this cosmic Jesus is,
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: it's really helpful to go back and look at what Jesus did.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: And the only time he would get angry was at power.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I go through my day,
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: and I try to I try to think about both the divinity of Jesus and the humanity
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: of Jesus.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean to me, like walking through the ups and downs of the day?
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Part of your answer is going to be, well,
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: because of the humanity,
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: you can be assured that God truly understands the pain and the joys that you walk
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: through.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: And there can be some real comfort in that.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe that's true.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: What else am I trying to take away from this dual nature of Jesus today?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think part of it is, and this, of course, leads to a whole bunch of other questions, but
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: Tim Wright This cosmic Jesus not only comes,
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'll make it personal,
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: not only comes to me,
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: comes to us as people in relationship,
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: but he has then the power and the authority to speak and do grace and life into me.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now,
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: you could say well wait a minute Tim your wife died of cancer where where was
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: where was God's power at that point well yes I understand that and that's
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: a whole different discussion but there's also a circle of life bed
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: that God has created into the universe
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: at this point we live we die we live again I mean that's just look
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: at plant life right and crops and so on
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes there can't be resurrection until there's been death.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's painful, but we don't go through that alone.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at,
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know there's another one,
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: but Hebrews says,
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens,
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus the Son of God.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Let us hold fast to our confession,
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are,
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yet without sin.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness so
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: So that speaks to partly Jesus gets it because he was human.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: Keep talking.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: I want to find the other one.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's another one there.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I got it.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is from this is from Hebrews 2.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: Since therefore the children shear flesh and blood,
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: He himself likewise shared the same things so that through death he might destroy
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: the one who has the power of death that is the devil and free those
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death for it is clear
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: that he did not come to help angels but the descendants of Abraham therefore he had
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because he himself was tested by what he suffered,
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: he is able to help those who are being tested.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe this is part of it, John, and again, this will probably be a good podcast later on.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: When we get really caught up
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm really flying by the seat of my pants.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: When we get caught up in just the power of the cosmic Jesus,
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: and that power doesn't seem to work the way I want it to work,
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: it creates crises of faith.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: If my understanding of Jesus is rooted in what he did,
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: and how he loved and his compassion and understanding that he too went through
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: a cross and God didn't seem to do what Jesus wanted him to do.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: He had to go through suffering.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: Then we realized that, okay,
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: this sucks,
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: but it's just a part of the human experience and God went through that as well.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: God went through the God forsakenness.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: God went through in the person Jesus those questions.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: And because he's been there,
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: he gets it,
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: he can sympathize, he understands, and gives us the grace to get through it.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: Not always to tie it up in a neat bow.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: Life just doesn't work that way.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: But we're not on our own.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Tim is not alone going through grief.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it feels like it.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, God.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: But the promise is that Jesus knows my grief even more intimately than I do.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that cosmic power that defeated death,
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: defeated death for Jan,
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: and is defeating the valley of the shadow of death that I'm in,
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: it's not going to have the final word of my life.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: I may live in the crucifixion for a while.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I probably need to live in the crucifixion for a while.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: But this Jesus who went through the crucifixion also has a word of life to bring.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of how, when we're suffering, we can bring those two pieces together, I think.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Next we can change.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Very good.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And amen.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, folks, we owe you 10 minutes.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: We'll give it back to you sometime.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: in the next 40 years.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's our look at Jesus.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're going to leave it there.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: Two parts on Jesus.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about the church next time, John.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's do it.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: So next week, we're going to talk about the church and does the church even matter?
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be back with you next time on a Deep Grace Podcast.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.